The fate of a parliamentary session scheduled to be held on Wednesday to discuss a new electoral draft-law is unclear over the lack of final stances on the participation of two blocs from the March 14 alliance.

The Phalange and the Lebanese Forces are emerging the major players in guaranteeing a needed quorum of 65 MPs for the session.

The ties between Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat and Hizbullah has deteriorated over the controversial dispute over the formation of the cabinet, media reports said on Tuesday.

Sources close to Jumblat told al-Liwaa newspaper that consultations are ongoing to reach common ground over the distribution of portfolios and to grant the March 8 alliance further guarantees over the matter.

A Palestinian man who lived in Canada for the past 26 years has been deported to Lebanon over a 1968 attack on an Israeli airliner, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Monday.

Issa Mohammed immigrated to Canada using a false alias in 1987, after being convicted by a Greek court of storming a civilian airliner and killing a passenger and later being released from jail in a hostage exchange.

Airport security thwarted on Monday an attempt to smuggle drugs from Lebanon to Belgium, reported the National News Agency.

It said that security officers at the Rafik Hariri International Airport discovered 7.750 kilograms of heroin concealed in a double-bottomed luggage of a Lebanese national who was seeking to travel to Brussels.

The Constitutional Council rejected Monday an appeal filed by the National Struggle Front and a number of MPs against a law suspending the deadline for submitting nominations for the parliamentary elections.

The council said the law did not violate Article 42 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “general elections for the renewal of the Chamber shall take place within a sixty day period preceeding the expiration of its mandate."

Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Qabbani appointed on Monday Sheikh Ahmed Nassar as the new mufti of the southern city of Sidon, while lashing out at his critics over his call for the elections at the Higher Islamic Council.

He said: “Those attacking the mufti, his authority, and decisions are seeking to impose dangerous changes on Dar al-Fatwa.”

Two army troops were lightly wounded in a clash with supporters of Islamist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir in Sidon on Monday, according to media reports.

“A supporter of Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir burned pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad and fired a number of gunshots on them, and when the Lebanese army intervened, a number of the young man's friends attacked army troops with knives, leaving two soldiers lightly wounded,” MTV said.

President Michel Suleiman voiced on Monday his support to an initiative proposed by the Phalange party, which focuses on introducing a constitutional amendment, which calls for neutrality and dissociate the country from the conflicts surrounding it.

“The initiative became a necessity during the current developments in the region,” Suleiman said after talks with a Phalage party delegation at the Baabda Palace.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat slammed on Monday the criticism directed against him by some members of the March 8 camp, saying that he will not get embroiled in “pointless debates” with them over the formation of a new government.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anba website: “The cabinet that grants eight ministers to the March 8, March 14, and centrist blocs offers the best representation and avoids schemes to obstruct political life in Lebanon.”

General Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi handed over on Monday to the Central Bank's Special Investigation Commission a preliminary list of the names of several people to monitor and probe if they have links to the al-Madina Bank scandal.

According to the state-run National News Agency, the commission received the names of 135 people that might have connections to the fraud case at al-Madina and money laundering.